Why learn French?

Everyone has their own motivations for learning a language, whether professional, personal or both. But there are some strong arguments for learning French, one of the most important international languages:

• French is one of the most widely-spoken languages around the world, from the Caribbean to Brussels.
• Believe it or not, French is among the easiest languages for speakers of English to learn. The languages share thousands of words due to a history dating back even before the Normans arrived in 1066. The Romans left smatterings of Latin words among the Celts when leaving Britain for sunnier climes in the 5th century.

• Learning French opens up the other romance languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and... Romanian.
• French is a working language of the European Union (along with German and English).
• French culture is simply irresistible, but how many people in the UK have read Proust, Molière and Hugo as the authors intended? Or understood what Serge Gainsbourg was growling about?
• You will get a lot more from any trip to France with even a little knowledge of the language. While the level of (and willingness to speak) English in Paris has increased in recent years, there is no substitute for a good grounding in French.
• If you wish to do business with a French-speaking firm, it is an important courtesy to at least attempt to speak French.
• According to regular surveys, speaking a foreign language makes you more employable and more attractive to the opposite sex. And you can't say fairer than that.